ICC urged to end Israel’s ‘devastating impunity’, as war crimes probe includes Abu Akleh

MEMO | May 27, 2022
Palestinian journalists are being systematically targeted by Israel because of the “gift of impunity” granted to the Apartheid State, a press conference in London was told today in the wake of the killing of Al Jazeera journalist, Shireen Abu Akleh.
Convened by the International Centre of Justice for Palestinians (ICJP), lawyers working on an existing case filed at the International Criminal Court (ICC) over the targeting of Palestinian journalists by Israel announced that they will add the killing of Abu Akleh to the complaint issued in April.
Lawyers from Doughty Street Chambers and Bindmans LLP, along with representatives from the International Federation of Journalists (IFJ), the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate, and the ICJP, spoke about Israel’s systematic targeting of Palestinian journalists and the ongoing legal battle to bring prosecution against the Occupation State.
The same group of lawyers and unions submitted a formal complaint to the ICC accusing Israel of systematically targeting journalists working in Palestine and failing to properly investigate killings of media workers, which amount to war crimes. The ICC recognised, in a February 2021 ruling, that it has jurisdiction over the situation in occupied Gaza, West Bank and East Jerusalem. This has paved the way for legal prosecution to be brought against Israel over alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The complaint details the systematic targeting of Palestinian journalists on behalf of four named victims – Ahmed Abu Hussein, Yaser Murtaja, Muath Amarneh and Nedal Eshtayeh – who were killed or maimed by Israeli snipers while covering demonstrations in Gaza. All were wearing clearly marked PRESS vests at the time they were shot.
The complaint also highlights the targeting of media and bombing of the Al-Shorouk and Al-Jawhara Towers in Gaza City in May 2021, including the cases of Alam News, Al Hayat Newspapers, Mayadeen Media, Al Bawaba 24 and others. Complaints have also formally been submitted to the UN Special Rapporteurs (UNSR) setting out how the systematic targeting of journalists working in Palestine, as well as the failure to properly investigate killings of media workers.
“We are awaiting confirmation from the ICC’s Prosecutor’s Office about the action they intend to take, but the killing of Shireen and the shooting of Ali Al-Samoudi bring to sharp focus the need for urgent action by the ICC”, Bindmans LLP, the firm hosting the event, said before the press conference. “We will seek to add these cases to the complaint that is already before the ICC.”
Director of the ICJP, Tayeb Ali, and the solicitor in the case said. “The targeting of journalists in conflict zones anywhere in the world is unacceptable and must bring severe consequences for those who try to hide their crimes and violations by killing or maiming journalists.” Ali described how “Israel has enjoyed a devastating impunity” and that the “gift of impunity” granted to the Apartheid State by international community has endangered the lives of Palestinian journalists. He stressed that “evidence is not the problem … holding Israel to account is.” Ali citied the large pool of documented evidence which he claims proves Israel is targeting journalists.
Updating the press conference over the April complaint issued to the ICC and the next step to prosecuting Israel, Jennifer Robinson, a barrister at Doughty Street Chambers, also spoke of Israel’s systematic targeting of Palestinian journalists.
Robinson mentioned the findings of the 2019 Commission of Inquiry on the 2018 protests in Gaza. The Commission paid special attention to the protection of civilians and to groups warranting protection under international law, including children, women, health workers, journalists and persons with disabilities. Citing several individual cases including journalists that were shot in the abdomen, the Commission concluded that it had “found reasonable grounds to believe that Israeli snipers shot journalists intentionally, despite seeing that they were clearly marked as such”. The killing of Abu Akleh, said Robinson, is not one off. There exists a “pattern of targeting Palestinian journalists” she stressed, urging the ICC “to take action.”
Jim Boumelha, the former president of IFJ, a federation of some six thousand journalists world-wide, including Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate, warned against the culture of impunity enjoyed by Israel. “Risk-free killing has become a norm” he said speaking about Israel’s systematic targeting of Palestinian journalists. The killing of Abu Akleh is a message to countless others that they could be next, Boumelha claimed. IFJ alone has documented 877 violations by Israel against media and journalists. Appealing to the ICC to do its job, Boumelha said that “Israel may be the only country in the world that refuses to accept Palestinian journalists as journalists.”
A video message by Nasser Abu Bakr, President of the Palestinian Journalists’ Syndicate, urged new ICC Chief Prosecutor Karim Khan to hold Israel to account. 50 journalists have been killed since 2000 alone said Abu Bakr. 7,000 crimes against Palestinian journalists have been documented.
A detailed account of Abu Akleh’s killing was given by her colleague, Walid Al-Omari. “Why would they target Shireen?” asked Al Jazeera’s Jerusalem Bureau Chief. He suggested that Israel was seeking to inflict a direct and powerful blow to Al Jazeera. By killing Abu Akleh, the Occupation State hoped to silence one of the most powerful voices in Arab media, Al Omari claimed.
Al Jazeera has called Abu Akleh’s killing a “blatant murder” that violates “international laws and norms”. In its statement on Thursday, the network said, according to Article 8 of the ICC Charter, “targeting war correspondents, or journalists working in war zones or occupied territories by killing or physically assaulting them, is a war crime”.
Supreme Court Rejects Appeal Challenging New York’s Removal of Religious Exemption for Schoolchildren
By Megan Redshaw | The Defender | May 26, 2022
The U.S. Supreme Court this week decided not to take up an appeal by parents seeking to challenge New York lawmakers’ 2019 removal of the religious exemption to vaccination requirements for schoolchildren.
The court’s May 23 order announcing its decision not to hear arguments in the case F.F. v. New York allows a lower court decision to stand. The lower court concluded the parents’ arguments lacked merit and the state was not targeting religion when it eliminated the religious exemption.
“Today we learned that the U.S Supreme Court will not hear the religious repeal case we have argued for the last almost three years,” lead attorney Michael Sussman told Autism Action Network (AAN).
Sussman said in an AAN email to members:
“As those who have followed the case know, the legislature in NY repealed the 50-year-old religious exemption for students in June 2019. It did so with hateful rhetoric accusing religious people of being fraudsters.
“I believe this violated the first amendment which this court explicitly has held does not suffer any state action smitten with religious intolerance. I had expected this court to reaffirm this principle, but four justices did not vote to hear our case.
“So, we have lost. The only hope now is in the state legislature and hope is hard to find there.”
Every year, the Supreme Court receives about 10,000 petitions for certiorari but hears only about 80 of them. If the case pertains to state law, or is comprised of parties from only one state, the chance that the Supreme Court will hear the appeal is small.
The lawsuit originated after former Gov. Andrew Cuomo on June 13, 2019, signed into law a bill that repealed the religious vaccine exemption for children whose parents or guardians hold genuine religious beliefs that do not permit the child to receive vaccinations.
The state law applies to students under 18 in both public and private schools and prohibits unvaccinated children from attending school or daycare in the state unless they have a medical exemption.
“The science is crystal clear: Vaccines are safe, effective and the best way to keep our children safe,” Cuomo said after signing the bill. “While I understand and respect freedom of religion, our first job is to protect public health.”
The appeal stemmed from a lawsuit filed on July 10, 2019, by attorneys Sussman and Children’s Health Defense chairman and chief legal counsel Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. on behalf of 55 families in the New York State Supreme Court challenging the constitutionality of the legislature’s repeal of the religious exemption to vaccination.
The families who brought the case included those from the Jewish, Christian and Muslim faiths. They argued the repeal of the exemption violated their First Amendment rights, exhibited hostility toward religion and breached protections under the U.S. Constitution’s Equal Protection Clause, among other issues.
The families claimed the policy forced them to either violate their beliefs or homeschool their children.
“In lobbying for its passage, numerous legislators publicly mocked and ridiculed those seeking religious exemptions for their children, and the legislature left intact a medical exemption,” the parents’ brief stated.
“There is no dispute the repeal [of the religious exemption] has put tens of thousands of students to the Hobson’s choice of violating their sincerely held religious beliefs or being denied the right to attend any manner of in-person schooling.”
Sussman said there was ample evidence leading up to the passing of the bill that state legislators had shown open hospitality toward faith and people of faith.
“Comments of leaders of the New York legislature spoke of profound religious intolerance, which motivated the repeal of the religious exemptions,” Sussman told AAN.
For example, Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins was quoted in a newspaper referring to the repeal by saying, “We have chosen science over rhetoric.”
Assembly sponsor Jeffrey Dinowitz said in a television interview, “There is nothing, nothing in the Jewish religion, in the Christian religion, in the Muslim religion … that suggests that you can’t get vaccinated. It is just utter garbage.”
State Sen. Brad Hoylman, Senate sponsor, deprecated those who hold religious exemptions, stating, “Let’s face it. Non-medical exemptions are essentially religious loopholes, where people often pay for a consultant to try to worm their way out of public health requirements that the rest of us are following.”
In an editorial, State Sen. James Skoufis referred to the “so-called ‘religious exemption,’” writing, “The time is now to end the state’s nonsensical and dangerous religious exemption.”
Skoufis added, “We’ve already wasted too much time debating this issue.”
Skoufis failed to mention that neither the Senate nor the Assembly convened even a single hearing on the topic.
“Short of some cataclysmic political upheaval, there is no future for ‘religious exemption’ in New York,” John Gilmore, executive director of AAN, said in an email.
But, he said, “that does not mean there is no hope that the power of the state to make vaccinations mandatory for our children and adults cannot be taken away from our overlords in Albany.”
Several other states prohibit K-12 schools from granting religious exemptions to required vaccinations for schoolchildren, including California, Mississippi, Connecticut, West Virginia and Maine.
The Scottish government is silencing Palestinians

By Yvonne Ridley | MEMO | May 24, 2022
Scotland’s First Minister Nicola Sturgeon is facing a backlash after a group of Palestinian academics criticised her decision to embrace the working definition of anti-Semitism prepared by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance because the definition clearly contradicts a hate crime review commissioned by her own government.
The Holyrood government took the decision to follow Westminster in its adoption of the controversial IHRA definition of anti-Semitism which includes, as an example, “Denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination, eg by claiming that the existence of a state of Israel is a racist endeavour.”
Now Sturgeon’s government is in the embarrassing position of embracing two conflicting reports which openly contradict each other. To add to her woes, international human rights groups as well as a UN rights expert recently declared Israel to be an “apartheid state”.
The contents of the IHRA definition clash with the findings of Lord Bracadale, who was appointed by Scottish Ministers in 2017 to lead the Independent Review of Hate Crime Legislation. A group of Palestinian academics has now confronted Sturgeon’s government over this clear contradiction.
A few days ago, an open letter was published in the Scottish media about the dilemma facing Palestinians living in Scotland who accuse the Holyrood government of effectively gagging them from talking about the ethnic cleansing of Palestine during and ever since the Nakba.
“As Palestinians in Scotland we feel the need to be able to tell our story of being driven from our homeland in a programme of ethnic cleansing that built the state of Israel on the destruction of our villages and towns,” wrote the 26 signatories, including Amina Abdel-Khaliq, Dr Nur Abdelkhaleq, Waseem Abu Aghlain and Dr Kholoud Ajarma. “The Scottish Government’s adoption of the problematic IHRA (International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance) definition of anti-Semitism limits that freedom by protecting the state of Israel from democratic critiques of its widely recognised apartheid structures.
“Responding in part to the question of the IHRA definition, Lord Bracadale’s 2018 Review of Hate Crime Legislation accepted the case put forward by Palestinians and others that legislation should not protect ‘political entities’ since that could lead to the ‘curtailment of freedom of expression and freedom of political debate’.”
In their letter, the signatories demand that the Scottish Government should act on the findings of Lord Bracadale’s hate crime review which it commissioned.
“The Palestinian community voice has been absent while the state that violates them has been armed and supported by our government and the entire UK political class,” commented the co-founder of the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Mick Napier. “That Palestinian first-person voice is uniquely compelling in forcing acknowledgement of the blood-soaked record of Israel, its past and present record of violent ethnic cleansing that is concealed or justified by our politicians.”
Napier added the warning that, “The Scottish Government seems intent on burying Bracadale’s warning that the IHRA can muzzle free speech. It must not be allowed to do so.”
I’ve always believed that hate towards and the unfair treatment of Jews should be roundly condemned, opposed and met with zero tolerance. But to be frank, the IHRA definition, which seeks to conflate anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism, does not serve to protect Jews; it is all about protecting the rogue state of Israel and its zealous supporters.
Towards the end of last year, I wrote about 82-year-old Diana Neslen who faced expulsion from the Labour Party after she was accused of posting “anti-Semitic” views on social media. The problem for Labour leader Keir Starmer and his party, though, was that Diana is a Jew.
After three investigations by the party she became so fed up that she employed lawyers, who fired off a warning letter telling Labour officials that her anti-Zionist viewpoint is a protected philosophical belief under the Equality Act in the UK. Furthermore, the lawyers at Bindmans said that she herself had been “subjected by the party to discrimination and harassment related to her protected philosophical belief.”
Predictably, the Labour Party backed down although it has yet to apologise to Neslen or abandon complaints against other party members under similar investigations. Jewish Voice for Labour, of which Neslen is a member, says that at least 46 Jewish Labour Party members, two of whom have since died, have faced or are facing disciplinary charges relating to allegations of anti-Semitism.
“To say that we are insulting Jews is wrong,” Neslen told the Guardian in February. “We are acting in accord with what we regard as Jewish values and Jewish ethics, and I’m not going to change that.”
So it seems that for most Palestinians and many Jews, the IHRA was designed to protect Israel, its racist policies and its Zionist supporters. Meanwhile, Lord Bracadale’s report makes it crystal clear that criticism of Israel and its racist policies is entirely legitimate.
There can be no doubt that anti-Semitism is a crime, but equally there can be no doubt that fighting Zionism is a duty for anyone who opposes apartheid. It’s time for Sturgeon and her government to get off the fence, scrap their support for the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism and allow Scottish Palestinians to tell their stories without let or hindrance.
Biden Regime’s Ministry of Truth Stumbles
But it is only on “pause” and we will be seeing it again
BY PHILIP GIRALDI • UNZ REVIEW • MAY 24, 2022
Finally some good news – maybe! The Department of Homeland Security’s recently launched Disinformation Governance Board has gone into what has been described as the “pause” mode and its controversial Director Nina Jankowicz has resigned, citing “vile personal attacks and physical threats.” Its status will reportedly be reviewed over the next 75 days and it will likely be rolled out more quietly next time around and under a different name.
The Board was developed to counter what was held to be unfair criticism of policies being promoted by the government. Ironically, however, it has recently become clear that the White House itself has been doing much of the lying. It uses the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) and other government agencies to spread false information, referred to as disinformation, to dupe the public into believing that there is something good and noble about America becoming heavily involved in the war in Ukraine, with all that entails. And, of course, since the evildoers must be excoriated as that drama is playing out, good old Russia fits in admirably, particularly as the Democrats still like to pretend that it was Moscow’s interference that defeated Hillary in 2016.
A lie is a lie, but it is the ultimate irony when a government that is caught lying on a regular basis sets up an inquisition that seeks to identify and take action against ordinary citizens who are accused of spreading “disinformation.” Of course, critics on the right immediately discerned that the disinformation will consist of anything that challenges the official government line on various issues, up to including pandemics, white supremacist domestic terrorism, aborting unwanted babies, and even the march to war. Although the inept President Joe Biden Administration can rightly be accused of elevating deceit to a steady diet of malapropisms, one can trace the rise of egregious lying by heads of state to the Gulf of Tonkin incident and, more recently, to the criminal deceptions carried out by the George W. Bush Administration. Those lies led to the invasion of Iraq, which cost trillions of dollars, killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqis and thousands of Americans, and which is still producing unrest in the region.
So now we were to be confronted by the Disinformation Governance Board, so designated under the august authority of the Department of Homeland Security to root out disinformation and those who are seeking to disseminate falsehoods about what our noble elected officials are doing to us in Washington. Followers of George Orwell inevitably, and almost immediately, dubbed the new creation the Ministry of Truth.
The official launch documents in late April claimed that the DGB would be “protecting free speech, privacy, civil rights, & civil liberties” against the “threat of disinformation.” Its focus would be on “homeland security, focused specifically on irregular migration and Russia,” meaning that it would be discrediting any source that complains about the flood of aliens crossing the US southern border or casting doubts on the necessity of supporting America’s Ukraine “allies.” In a follow-up briefing DHS elaborated that it would monitor threat “disinformation spread by foreign states such as Russia, China and Iran, or other adversaries such as transnational criminal organizations and human smuggling organizations.”
And the board was to be headed by one Nina Jankowicz, a weird, highly politicized concoction who sang about her mission in a tweet entitled “You can just call me the Mary Poppins of disinformation” while confirming that she would be the first executive director of the DGB. She has also written a book entitled “How To Be A Woman Online.” She has worked for the National Democratic Institute, the Democratic Party affiliate of the National Endowment for Democracy that promotes democracy worldwide. She has also been a fellow at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington.
In an NPR interview responding to a question concerning Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter, Jankowicz ridiculously opined that “I shudder to think about, if free speech absolutists were taking over more platforms, what that would be like for the marginalized communities around the world…” Glenn Greenwald further described the new Disinformation Czar as having “herself ratified and helped spread virtually every disinformation campaign concocted by the union of the Democratic Party and corporate media over the last five years. Indeed, the only valid basis for calling her a ‘disinformation expert’ is that she has spread disinformation with such gusto. The most notorious of those was the pre-election lie that the authentic Hunter Biden laptop was ‘disinformation.’ She also decreed falsely that the origins of COVID were definitively proven to be zoonotic and could not have come from a lab leak, was a frequent and vocal advocate of the fraudulent Steele Dossier, and repeatedly pronounced as true all sorts of Trump/Russia collusion conspiracy theories which Robert Mueller, after conducting an intense 18-month investigation, rejected as lacking evidence to establish their truth.”
Jankowicz’s boss Department of Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas nevertheless claimed that she was “eminently qualified,” a “renowned expert,” and politically “neutral.” But to put that in context, her rather thin actual work history, heavy on being a Democratic Party apparatchik tied to the Clintons, oddly includes a stint as a Fulbright-Clinton fellow in 2017 serving as an adviser on disinformation to the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry. She sports the US and Ukrainian flags next to her picture on her twitter page.
Attempts by governments to shape their message by discrediting alternative viewpoints are not exactly new. Here in the US, suppressing contrary views is nearly as old as the republic. The Alien and Sedition Acts of 1798 gave the president power to deport potentially “dangerous” foreigners and made it a crime to print “any false, scandalous, and malicious writing” about the government. President John Adams supported these laws because he wanted to prevent a war with France, quite the reverse of what the Biden regime is seeking to do as it mobilizes against Russia. Vice President Thomas Jefferson was openly disgusted by the unconstitutional acts, which probably contributed to his election as president in 1800.
The Acts were subsequently allowed to expire and were never reviewed by the Supreme Court, but there is also the later example of the Committee for Public Information which was used by the government to support the war party line in World War One. There followed the Espionage Act of 1918, which is still in effect, that was used liberally by President Woodrow Wilson to silence critics of American entry into the war. The definition of what constitutes “espionage” was deliberately made infinitely elastic and the Act is still in use against whistleblowers and presumably also Julian Assange.
Given the language connected with the launch of the Disinformation Government Board, it might reasonably be assumed that it would have surely sought to suppress “malicious writing” and speech relating to the Biden sponsored wave of illegal immigration along the country’s southern border that has driven America’s foreign-born population to a record 46.6 million people. And, in addition to an increase in arriving Afghans, which was actually written into the bill proposing $33 billion more for Ukraine, there will surely be more Ukrainian migrants. Jewish organizations in the US, Europe and Israel are already actively bringing in co-religionists. Given political realities, displaced Ukrainian Jews will likely be quietly given refugee status granting them full benefits to include housing and welfare payments.
Not surprisingly, the surging wave of immigration is highly unpopular among working people who are already established, even among many Democrats, and the Biden response will be to compel the bad vibes go away, literally, by openly labeling critics as liars peddling disinformation. Whether there will be actual criminal or civil penalties attached to the process remains to be seen when the board is most likely resurrected under another name.
And, of course, the likes of Senator Rand Paul, Congressman Tom Massie, journalist Tucker Carlson and former Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard would have their views on the developing catastrophe in Ukraine challenged and denigrated, to include possibly arranging for their banning from social media sites, which is already being done to some critics. The fact is that we do not know at this point exactly what the new Board will eventually be empowered to do, but one can count on the results being bad, destructive both of the First Amendment and of honest journalism in the United States.
The ability of the government to collude with corporate America to diminish personal liberty of the citizenry cannot be understated. We have already seen corporations that operate on the internet proactively terminating accounts that it considers politically unacceptable. Consortium News, a perfect respectable site of long standing that has a splendid record of investigative journalism, was recently delisted by PayPal, which took the further step of confiscating its nearly $10,000 of funds with the threat that the money might be retained by PayPal as an additional punishment.
The reality is that the government can unleash its thousands of lawyers to make a case against nearly every citizen who is politically active. Which is why the Biden Administration has already been criminalizing and/or sanctioning any foreign organization that has “interfered in or undermined public confidence in United States elections,” as if the two major parties are not already doing that quite effectively all by themselves. If that is truly a crime why aren’t Nancy Pelosi and Mitch McConnell being sanctioned?
In my own experience, I have dealt with threatened punishment regarding my contributing to and participating in the activities of an Iranian NGO and a Russian information site. Neither organization can plausibly be regarded as a threat to the United States, though they both were highly critical of US government policies, as am I. In one case, American participants in a conference overseas organized by the Iranians were warned that they would be arrested upon return, which currently appears to be “due process” in the US. In the case of the Russian site, the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) advised that any American writing for the site could be fined as much as $311,562!
The unfortunate reality is that the real damage is being done through the employment of government driven restrictions punishing ordinary citizens who are exercising their right of free speech and free association. It is easy to claim that a foreign news service or NGO is “undermining confidence in US elections” as it is a charge that one need not have to prove. Indeed, it is unprovable and it is a weapon that can be used to manage dissent and to narrow the bounds of acceptable discourse. The question becomes whether and to what extent the successor to the now paused Disinformation Governance Board will attempt to apply similar standards to Americans. One might suggest that the barring of dissident US journalists and political figures from social media sites and from funding mechanisms like PayPal is the first shot to be fired in a long struggle over what is “truth” that will play out over the next two years.
Philip M. Giraldi, Ph.D., is Executive Director of the Council for the National Interest, a 501(c)3 tax deductible educational foundation (Federal ID Number #52-1739023) that seeks a more interests-based U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East. Website is councilforthenationalinterest.org, address is P.O. Box 2157, Purcellville VA 20134 and its email is inform@cnionline.org.
Israel denies EU delegation entry to to Palestine
MEMO | May 23, 2022
A European Parliament delegation cancelled a trip to the occupied Palestinian territories yesterday after the group’s chairperson, Manu Pineda, was denied entry to Israel, reported Wafa news agency.
The Spanish member of the European Parliament and chair of the parliament’s delegation for relations with Palestine was scheduled to travel to the occupied Palestinian territories with a group of European lawmakers to review the situation on the ground following the assassination of Palestinian Al Jazeera journalist, Shireen Abu Akleh.
However, at late notice the group was informed that the mission would not be able to go ahead as planned due to what has been described as a “unilateral decision” taken by Israeli authorities.
“Israel is blocking the work of the European Parliament,” said Pineda, adding that the delegation had also been denied access to the besieged Gaza Strip.
He shared the letter that the Israeli Foreign Ministry, which states occupation forces “cannot allow the visit to Gaza of delegations with political affiliation and legislators.”
In response, European Parliament President Roberta Metsola, who is currently in Israel to meet President Isaac Herzog and Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, said on Twitter, she regretted Israel’s decision to refuse entry to Pineda and would raise the decision directly with the Israeli authorities during her visit.
“Respect for MEPs and the European Parliament is essential for good relations,” she said.
Pineda thanked Metsola for her remarks and called on her to “apply reciprocity in our institution until the decision is reversed.”
“It is important that we are united to defend the European Parliament,” he said.
The European Parliament’s delegation for relations with Palestine has 18 members and informs the European Union legislature about political, economic and human rights developments in the occupied territories.
Sign the World Freedom Declaration – Oppose IHR amendments
OffGuardian | May 21, 2022
The Health Freedom Defense Fund – a US-based non-profit – has published an open declaration opposing the planned amendments to the International Health Regulations.
Kit broke down the proposed changes in detail in yesterday’s article. Suffice to say, they amount to a massive threat to both individual liberty and national sovereignty.
You can read the full text of the HFDF declaration here, or a (slightly) abridged version below.
The declaration has already been signed by almost 30,000 people, including Robert Kennedy Jr, Dr Sucharit Bhakdi and Naomi Wolf.
To see the full list of signatories, and add your own signature you can click here.
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Declaration of Opposition to the Proposed International Health Regulations Amendments
We, the undersigned, oppose the proposed amendments to the World Health Organization’s (WHO) existing 2005 International Health Regulations (IHR) and stand in support of all people’s right to health sovereignty and self-determination.
The United States’ proposed amendments to the IHR are set to be considered at the 75th World Health Assembly, which begins on the 22nd of May, 2022. The proposed amendments, however, create an ambiguity relating to the date they become effective as the proposed amendments expressly state they will become effective six months after the date of notification by the Director-General, whereas the existing IHR provides that amendments become effective 18 months after notification by the Director-General.
If accepted, these legally binding amendments would come into effect for all member states except those that explicitly reject them. Under Article 59 of the IHR, de facto approval is assumed for any member states that fail to reject or take reservation to the amendments.
The existing IHR, adopted in 2005, respect the sovereignty of all member nations. The proposed amendments, however, would expand and codify the WHO’s authority to implement global health mandates in direct violation of national sovereignty and citizens’ rights.
These proposals attempt to eliminate a nation’s autonomy, during times of real, assumed or anticipated public health emergencies, affording the WHO unilateral power in assessing and determining a health emergency and empowering the WHO to dictate policy and response.
All of this comes on the heels of the COVID-19 crisis during which the WHO grossly mismanaged all facets of the global health response by encouraging economy-destroying lockdowns, suppressing early preventive treatments and recommending interventions that have proven to be neither safe nor effective.
Under the guise of health regulations, these amendments would permit the WHO to seize executive governance powers over member states, granting governing powers to unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats.
In sum, the IHR amendments would, among other changes:
- Intensify the surveillance of all countries and their citizens.
- Grant the WHO the authority to tell other member states when one member state isn’t reporting and launch punitive actions.
- Empower the WHO Director-General to declare when and where a pandemic or “alleged” emergency is occurring using undisclosed sources.
- Confer unrestricted powers to the Director-General to define and implement interventions.
- Give the WHO the ability to access and mobilize capital in the event of a pandemic.
- This power grab by the WHO, its donors, and stakeholders represents a direct attack on the political and economic sovereignty of all nations and their citizens.
By repeatedly promoting policies that caused catastrophic economic, social, physical, emotional and mental damage across the globe, the WHO has failed in its mission as global steward of public health and cannot be entrusted with setting policy for all citizens of the world.
Of note, the WHO enjoys immunity from every form of legal action, arrest, and searches of their papers, documents, and facilities.
The WHO should not be allocated more money, power, or authority nor should it be allowed to further control the world’s health agenda or implement biosecurity measures.
Global agreements brokered by unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats must never be permitted to rule any nation.
It is imperative that each nation and territory retain its sovereignty, especially during times of crisis, so that the entire global community can be protected from globally directed policies that primarily benefit powerful financial and ideological stakeholders.
The undersigned respectfully request that all nations and their representatives repudiate such agreements.
We strongly oppose the proposed IHR amendments which would require nations and their citizens to adhere to the dictates of an unaccountable global body.
We oppose any involvement in a treaty, agreement, or other legally binding global document that would hinder any nation’s sovereignty in the area of public health.
We assert that nations and their citizens are best-positioned and -equipped to make health decisions appropriate to their communities.
We demand that the people of each nation be in charge of determining their response to health crises.
As citizens of the world, we defend the rights, freedoms, and privacy of all members of the global community by calling for the rejection of the IHR amendments and the WHO’s attempt to usurp the power and authority of health policy from its rightful place – at home amongst the people.
On May 18, 2022, this declaration was authored and signed by,
Leslie Manookian
Health Freedom Defense Fund


